help with removing windows partion

[skedone]

hi guys i have windows and kubuntu 8.04 on the same sata drive but now i want to remove windows and repartition the drive without losing data anyone help me out i have gparted installed if that helps

[toad]

Re: help with removing windows partion

Hi there,

I generally use an install gparted only for external drives such as USB-sticks.

For my hard disks I boot off the gparted or partedmagic boot disk to avoid any nasty surprises...

[LinuxIsInnovation]

Re: help with removing windows partion

Using gparted as already advised, simply format the Windows partition to the fs you want to.

You may also edit the GRUB menu to remove the Windows entry:

sudo kate /boot/grub/menu.lst

Rather than deleting the windows entry, comment out the lines by adding a # in front of the 3-4 lines for Windows (ie. title, rootnoverify, makeactive, chainloader +1 and other lines associated with title "Windows")
Even though kate makes a backup file, manually backup your menu.lst file before you do this:

sudo cp menu.lst menu.lst.backup

[skedone]

Re: help with removing windows partion

thanks guys i will do that later so do i need to burn down a gparted iso or can i do it from within Linux, Not to fussed on making it a whole partition again just claiming the space back so i can use it as a new download area

[SoulSlayer]

Re: help with removing windows partion

helllo

i think you can use it for download area if you edit properly your fstab file you must have the "rw" option or "default" will do this job too this will work if we talk for ntfs partition

if you want to make that partition with other file system fat32 or ext3 for example you must format it ..

[skedone]

Re: help with removing windows partion

sorry lost you there my friend let me give more detail

i have a 500GB SATA hard-drive partitioned in two parts with Linux and kubuntu running on it.

what i would like to do is clear all the data of the NTFS partition(windows) so i can use it as space again.

don't need to resize the partition or remove the partition as im getting all new parts for my machine soon Including 2x 1TB SATA drives and will have solely for Linux and one just for windows. Still need windows as i do a lot of gaming (hence the upgrade lol)

[Snowhog]

Re: help with removing windows partion

As suggested earlier, just boot into your GParted LiveCD and reformat the NTFS partition to what every you want it to be - ext3 or FAT32 or ...

That will take care of Windoze! You would then also want to edit your /etc/fstab file to remove any entry that pointed to the NTFS partition just formatted. And, edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst file to remove the Windoze boot section (at the end of the file).

[skedone]

Re: help with removing windows partion

can this be done in gparted in linux as i have no cds just dvds

[toad]

Re: help with removing windows partion

Yes, you can (sorry, not wanting to be political here ).

Install gparted (sudo apt-get install gparted), plug in your external drive but do not mount it (!) and fire up gparted. The rest should be self explanatory, but feel free to come back with questions...

[SoulSlayer]

Re: help with removing windows partion

listen the veterans duude

me personaly prefere cfdisk or hiren but ... listen them this will work for sure

[skedone]

Re: help with removing windows partion

thanks guys and buy the way this is not a external drive this is a internal drive lol the one Linux (that im using) is installed on and windows but yeah i will give it a go later

[skedone]

Re: help with removing windows partion

new problem i formatted the drive to EXT3 and edited the Grub loader but now i can seem to access the partition as when i try to access it after mounting it, it only displays a lost & found folder and wont let me create any new folders or copy anything to it it just says failed. please help

[toad]

Re: help with removing windows partion

Ouch, you cannot change a mounted drive or you'll end up in never never land...

fdisk is, of course, just the same but without the GUI - which means it will still land you in deep **** when tried on a mounted drive.

So grab a knoppix DVD from somewhere, boot it and get gparted going from there.

[skedone]

Re: help with removing windows partion

well i went ahead a did it like i already said and now i can only access the new ETC3 partition via root (what was the windows partition) i am beginning to think i may need to back up and reinstall is 8.10 stable yet?

where is the best place to get the 8.10 dvd i386 image from unless the amd64 version is more stable and compatible now

[muzicman0]

Re: help with removing windows partion

sounds like you are not mounting the partition with write permission. I have had this issue many times...how are you mounting?